Leominster stove fire highlights seasonal danger

LEOMINSTER 
Brenda E. Hernandez, her husband, Daniel Troche, and their four sons were pretty lucky yesterday morning that co-workers drove by their Pleasant Street home and saw flames shooting out the vent pipe for their pellet stove.

The couple was at work at a student bus company when they got a call from a friend.

“The stove is next to the tree, so I thought, 'Oh my God! It is probably the Christmas tree. I left it on,' ” she said. “We're thankful there is only minimal damage. This is our first home.”

Mr. Troche said when he and his wife arrived, firefighters had already put out the fire in the stove — only a few feet away from the family's Christmas tree — and there was still smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe.

“It stopped working properly and smoked up the house,” he said. “I'm going to have somebody check it Sunday morning.”

He said he had a pellet stove installed in September to save money on heating costs this winter. For now, the family will heat their home with the baseboard heaters, he said.

“It could have been much worse,” Mr. Troche said.

While the firefighters were still at their home, Ms. Hernandez said she heard a call on their radios for a fire at Leominster High School, where her two oldest sons attend school.

Deputy Fire Chief Gary J. Ranno said there was a small fire in one of the bathrooms that caused smoke damage to that room. Staff and students were evacuated and then returned once the fire was out, he said.

That fire is still under investigation.

The call at the high school came in at 10:32 a.m., about 20 minutes after the pellet stove fire was called in at 594 Pleasant St.

“We shut the pellet stove and evacuated the pellets out of the stove,” Deputy Chief Ranno said. “It malfunctioned.” He said people should have heating stoves checked by a licensed professional annually before using them in the winter, and make sure chimneys and vent stacks are clean and free of nests and animals.

“They are very lucky,” he said. “The fire could have caught the wall on fire and got the tree going. It is not a good idea to have a tree that close to the stove.”

People should look at the instructions for their stove and make sure the tree is placed far enough away. That is at least 6 to 8 feet away for a woodstove, he said.

“It is really dangerous with real trees that dry out,” he said. “There is oil on the needles, and it is almost like pure gasoline. You have to keep them watered because when they dry out, they are extremely flammable.”

He added that this time of year, firefighters also respond to frequent cooking fires, and people should check their equipment beforehand.

“We'll get a call that a husband was cooking and forgot there was a pizza box in the oven when he turned it on to heat it up,” he said. “People should be a little more careful this time of year.”